New Abilities
Amplify: Increases Magic Reflect, Return Fire, and Thorns damage to all enemy monsters by 1.
The Amplify ability increases all of the response damage abilties, which may end up setting up an entire strategy of turtling up and just returning fire from powerful and aggressive creatures. Amplify at first glance seems to be really strong against double strike and low mana pinging monsters. It does appear this abiltiy is most suited for summoners, but it may find a way to epic or legendary monsters as well.
Forcefield - This Monster takes only 1 damage from attacks with power 5+.
Forcefield is a godzilla block. Allowing the overpowered monsters to be reduced from 5+ all the way down to zero is a very useful ability and will serve to slow down the behemoths in the format. I am excited to see what creatures end up with the abiltiy and how they plan to balance it out.
Camouflage - This Monster cannot be targeted for attacks unless it's in the first position.
Camouflage is a nice flavor ability, as a creature can now hide from sneak and opportunity. In some ways this gives the creature a little more certainty when adding them to your line up, and could stimey somestrategies that like to pick up creatures behind the tank.
Deathblow - This Monster does 2x damage if their target is the only Monster left on the enemy team.
Deathblow is a really nice counter to Last Stand. It can be really frustrating to have a flawless line up just get auto losses from Last Stand, and having an abiltiy that could help tear through that final creature seem important. I also think there will be a lot of interesting strategy in deciding where to put a Deathblow creature in the line up.
Splinterlands already has a vast ability pool to learn and understand, but it is always fun to see new and interesting abilities showing up in addition to all of the new cards and game play modes. It is an exciting time to be a Splinterlands player.